Posted on 09/09/2015 2:34:13 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Jeb thinks he can beat Trump by attacking his liberal past. He clearly doesn't understand the nature of this beast.
I wrote two months ago that Donald Trump is a mirror image of the conservative psyche, a perfect distillation of the Tea Party id: No ideas, no substance – just bluster and fiery platitudes. Everything that’s happened since has confirmed my initial suspicion. Trump has continued to repackage shopworn stupidities and beam them back at his audiences, and conservatives can’t get enough of it.
If you’ve followed Trump’s ongoing spat with Jeb Bush, you’ve probably noticed that Trump is winning. And the reason is simple: They’re fighting on Trump’s terrain. Trump’s appeal is mostly psychological. He rarely makes sense and he never bothers to explain himself; he just demonizes brown people and tells anxious white people that he’ll make their country great again. Because he’s tapping into something deep and dark, the specifics never quite matter – it’s the tone that counts.
Trump’s tough guy shtick has made Jeb a soft target. Trump’s latest jab comes in the form of a brief Instagram video. Like everything else Trump does, the ad is completely devoid of ideas. It is, however, oddly brilliant, and exactly what you’d expect from a reality TV star like Trump. Spanning a few seconds, the ad shows Jeb discussing the intricacies of health care policy while a supporter sleeps behind him. Against this backdrop, the narrator says, “Too much energy? Need some low energy? Jeb, for all your sleeping needs.”
The message is clear: Jeb is a limp dotard who lacks the vigor to make America great again. This plays nicely into Trump’s campaign narrative, which feels like a massive exercise in megalomania and overcompensation. Trump basically stands behind a podium and tells people two things: He’s incredibly awesome and everyone else can stick their political correctness up their ass. Is it any surprise that his ad essentially casts Jeb Bush as the protagonist of one of those “Low T” commercials?
Jeb’s response to Trump so far has been mildly amusing. He appears not to understand what’s happening to him, or why Trump, despite having nothing concrete to offer, is winning this exchange. One of Jeb’s longtime advisers, Mike Murphy, now the chief strategist for Bush’s super PAC, said that “He [Jeb] has faith over time in the people and the power of his ideas.” John McKager Stipanovich, a Florida lobbyist and close Bush friend, struck a slightly different note, arguing that “Donald Trump epitomizes everything Jeb has spent his political career trying to prevent the Republican Party from becoming.”
As best I can tell, Jeb’s strategy is to engage Trump (so as not to appear meek) without adopting Trump’s tactics. At a recent campaign stop, Jeb countered Trump by emphasizing his political stamina: “The ‘low energy’ candidate this week has only been six days, sixteen hours a day campaigning with joy in my heart.” He also released a video last week that highlighted all of the liberal positions that Trump has taken in the past.
Here’s a bit of unsolicited advice for Jeb: You’re missing the point. Trump supporters (read: the conservative base) don’t care if you’re campaigning with “joy in your heart.” Nor do they care if Trump once identified as a liberal. And they certainly don’t care about the “power of your ideas.” What Trump understands (and what Bush clearly doesn’t) is that the people flocking to Trump are doing so because they don’t give a damn about policy or substance or facts. They want to hear someone tell the establishment that it’s full of shit, and Bush is the establishment. Trump may not have ideas or political acumen or a basic sense of decency, but he knows what alienated conservatives want to hear – and that’s enough.
Trump’s success (and Jeb’s decline) shows how easy it is to openly infantilize the conservative base. You don’t need ideas to win over Republicans anymore; you simply have to reflect their paranoia and frustration, with as much bombast and superficiality as possible.
Donald Trump gets it, Jeb Bush doesn’t – and that’s why Trump is winning.
Y’all are terrified?…OK.
I don’t mind telling people at all that I am angry. Anyone NOT angry with the destruction of this nation probably is a Jeb! voter.
Patriots want the constitutionally limited government that the Founding States intended for the USA to have, not a constant string of lies from the legislative, executive and judicial branches about what is and isn’t constitutional.
Salon freaking out is always a good thing. :-)
I love it when someone who has been here even longer than I have doesn’t understand the first thing about this place or what thread posters do.
Jeb has ideas:
1. Get the Feds COMPLETELY out of Education and 30 secs later
2. Full funding for the 3 biggest Fed Ed programs with minor tweaks to the strings attached to them.*
Now that’s the kind of ideas Salon would understand.
* Sat afternoon, RedState Atlanta
Which face do you put your makeup on, Sean?
ROFL...this from some metrosexual little man in Salon which is nothing but a bunch of ANGRY LEFTIST constantly screaming and whining and chanting their rage.
I’m going to open a home kitchen store for liberals and call it “Black Pot, Meet Kettle”.
Poor little Godless commie libs.
The founders had the “ideas” over 200 years ago, and they’ve worked better than any other form of government ever attempted. Those ideas gave us freedom, prosperity, and safety.
The only “ideas” the left has shown are those of treason, tyranny and destruction.
We’re frankly tired of those “ideas” and don’t see this election as a battle of ideas, but as saving the country by returning to, and adhering to the Constitution.
Rage? YES! And it’s going to take rage and shucking of guilt to get back our country and the liberties we heretofore enjoyed. It’s going to take guts and aggressive pushback to rid the land of the usurpers and illegal invaders.
If the author of this was speaking the article, I could just see him shaking and sweating, and spitting saliva with each word.
He is not conservative.
Don’t forget the “brown people” meme. They’re not just racists, they are hypocritical racists.
Poor brain-dead Salonistas. They can’t comprehend legitimate conservative opinion so they have to imagine something happening that sounds bad so they don’t have to deal with the truth.
Yep. The reason he’s so popular is that conservatives ignore his liberal credentials and liberals ignore his conservative credentials. And moderates see him as moderate. ;-)
Oh
Trump and his supporters are smiling and happy and optimistic for once! It’s the anti-Trumpers who are in a blind, blood-from-the-eyes fury...
(Historical Note: The 1994 U.S. House of Representatives election (also known as the Republican Revolution) was held on November 8, 1994, in the middle of President Bill Clinton's first term. As a result of a 54-seat swing in membership from Democrats to Republicans, the Republican Party gained a majority of seats in the United States House of Representatives for the first time since 1952 and a majority of votes for the first time since 1946. It was also the largest seat gain for the Republican Party since 1946.)"Some thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any two-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It's clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It's the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week....Parenting and governing don't have to be dirty words: the nation can't be run by an angry two-year-old."
-- ABC World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings in his daily ABC Radio commentary, November 14, 1994
“Donald Trump epitomizes everything Jeb has spent his political career trying to prevent the Republican Party from becoming”. That would make great Donald Trump ad!!!
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